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PERPETUAL LIGHT 



"Ah, do not turn to me that face which is no longer 
of this world! . . . There are enough angels to 
serve the mass in Heaven! Have pity on me, who 
am only a man without wings, who rejoiced in this 
companion God had given me, and that I should 
hear her sigh with her head resting on my shoul- 
der! . . . the bitterness like the bitterness of 
myrrh . . . And for you age is already come. 
But how hard it is to renounce when the heart is 



young !' 



''the tidings brought to mary" 



PERPETUAL 
LIGHT 

BY 
WILLIAM ROSE BENET 



. . that we may be able to arrive 
with pure minds at the festival 
of perpetual light. Through the 
same Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Oremiis. 




NEW HAVEN 
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON • HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MDCCCCXIX 



s^O^ 



^%^<'' 



^cvVA 



COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



JAN -2 1920 



(Q)CI.A56i272 



<^r•^ "(/I I 



5 



DEDICATION 

TO KATHLEEN AND MARGARET 

Think of no verse when you read this. 
But think of her alone 
And her enduring benefice, 
Sunlight on stone. 

For day is stone and night is stone 
Save she has made them bright. 
Now she knows all that may be known 
Of day and night. 

Courage like hers we have from her. 
Strength to be straight and brave. 
And noble memories that recur 
And heal and save. 

By her clear eyes, by her pure brows. 
We take the Sign, 

And kneel within her Father's house — 
And yours and mine. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

The first eleven poems in the section entitled, 
"Before/' originally appeared in my first volume, 
"Merchants from Cathay/' published by the Cen- 
tury Company. This volume is now out of print and 
I hold the copyright. The three poems following 
these originally appeared in my second volume, 
"The Falconer of God and Other Poems." For 
permission to reprint a few of the remaining poems 
I have to thank the editors of Reedy's Mirror, The 
Bang, The Lyric, The Madrigal, The Sun Dial 
{New York Evening Sun), Everybody's Magazine, 
The Century Magazine, and "Books and the Book 
World" {New York Sunday Sun). For the group, 
"The Long Absence/' in the section entitled, 
"After," I owe thanks to The Yale Review. 



CONTENTS 











PAGE 


Foreword ....... 9 


Before 


The Snare of the Fowler . . . .21 


Thwarted Utterance 








22 


The Song of Her . 








24 


"Always I Know You Anew" 








26 


The Rival Celestial 








27 


The Tamer of Steeds . 








28 


Love in Armor 








29 


Wardrobe of Remembrance 








30 


The Second Covenant . 








31 


Dedication to a First Book 








33 


The Shadowed Road 








34 


Love in the Dawn 








36 


"Had I a Claim to Fame.?" . 








37 


The One .... 








38 


Dream and Deed . 








39 


A Taper of Incense 








41 


To Purity .... 








43 


Atonement . 








46 


The Adoration 








49 


Talisman .... 








50 


Recognition 








52 


The Silver Hind . 








55 


Aristeas Relates His Youth . 








57 


Man Possessed 








60 


[ 7 ] 













CONTENTS 






PAGE 


Miniature ....... 66 


Death Will Make Clear 






66 


Sunlight 






69 


And a Long Way Off He Saw 


Fairyland 




72 


In Time of Trouble 






74 


Anomaly 






75 


The Lover . 








76 


Judgment . 








77 


Un forgotten 








78 


The Pale Dancer 








79 


Premonition 








81 


After 








Introductory Poem 






87 


The Long Absence 






106 


By the Counsel of Her Hands 






111 


Strength Beyond Strength 






115 


Que Sais-Je.f* 






117 


Ebb-Tide 








119 


Coward 








121 


Aquilifer 








122 


The Woman 








124 


Pervigilium 








126 


Time Was . 








128 


The Masters 








129 


When 








130 


Children 








131 


The Retreat 








132 


Sealed 








134 



[ 8 ] 



FOREWORD 

Teresa Frances Thompson, who also bore my name by 
marriage, died on January 26, 1919. This verse is pub- 
lished to her memory, because I wish to keep together 
the poetry she occasioned and enable those who loved 
her — and they were a great many — to know definitely 
what she was to me. 

I think that is the truth. This is the only means I 
have at present of acknowledging publicly the vast debt 
I owe to her. 

As I turn these poems over — if they are even to be 
called poems — I realize that they can never begin to 
express what her personality was. The earliest ones 
were written by a boy who was in love, and the latest 
by a man who has suddenly stepped into the dark. 
Those between are fragments from the days when we 
were struggling along together at the everyday tasks 
and outside interests and dreams that possessed us. The 
war entered our lives to change them in September, 
1917. The poem, "Man Possessed," was written within 
sound of her actual voice, the others all in absence from 
her at various times and in moods made strange by 
absence. 

And yet this is all I have at present to give in her 
memory. But I hold by these because — though they are 
poor, freakish fragments as far as any real expression 
of her is concerned — they were made for her. 

[ 9 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

It is even harder to express in bald prose a per- 
sonality that had so many sides, so many varying 
strengths, such inner sight and yet such a forthright 
splendid intelligence, I have tried once to round it into 
periods — and have destroyed the attempt. It is my hope 
that the sister to whom she was devoted with an attach- 
ment altogether unusual to most of us will write of her. 

If I merely recount the outlines of her life, it loses 
her. To say that her girlhood was given up to an 
intense and whole-souled devotion to the life of Christ 
as taught by the Roman Catholic Church will not even 
trace the outlines of that great spiritual adventure. But 
there, in the word "adventure," is a dim ideograph of 
what she found in life. Every day was an adventure 
to her with the hope of accomplishing something over 
and above mere routine and the pursuit of pleasure. 
And she used to say to me that her life had simply been 
a series of experiments into which she had put her whole 
heart, and in which she had always failed. But, of 
course, she never failed. 

She wrote me while I was stationed at Washington: 

"I am so very glad of your Sunday experience. 1 
wish that I might have shared it with you, but I almost 
did, since we were at Mass there and walked across that 
green together. . . . No one else might be impressed by 
it, but you know. When I first thought of a convent I 
was about sixteen, and I did not go until I was twenty- 
one. During that time I had the habit of pretending 
when I went to sleep that I was lying full-length in a 
convent chapel before a dark altar, with its tiny light. 
When I went to the Little Sisters, with all its strange- 

[ 10 ] 



FOREWORD 
ness and homesickness and wrench away from every- 
thing^ I was sustained by the knowledge that our bed- 
room on the third floor was across a wide hall from a 
rose window that looked right down into the Chapel. 
The dormitory had windows out into the hall, French 
fashion, so that when I opened the one at the head of my 
bed I was doing just what I had so often planned. You 
cannot imagine how personal it seemed to me. 

"Then years after when I was in the Carmelite con- 
vent in London, it began to snow. I stood at a window 
looking out at the snow upon the roofs, and began to 
think (as you would have in my place), "Deep on the 
convent roofs the snows are sparkling to the moon," — 
and suddenly I realized that it was St. Agnes Eve, and 
that long ago, when I was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, I 
had prayed that I might be a Carmelite nun in England. 
It was a thrill. No one else knew it. No one else could 
possibly have brought either of those two things about 
but Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for- 
ever." 

And she wrote me later: 

"We will make a go of it together — I have been just 
where you are several times in my life. There is no 
denying that it hurts like the mischief, but there is some- 
thing carried away out of it that the people who don't 
go through with it do not have. When I came back from 
the Little Sisters, after affirming and reaffirming (to 
strengthen my own resolution) that I was never coming 
back, I had to face just the same old world, and the 
same streets and people. Then, after the earthquake, 
I left Paul Elder's to go out to the settlement in the 

[ 11 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Mission. I was full of faith in it, to work among the 
poor, without the fetters of a convent, to plan a new 
way in which Catholic girls could dedicate themselves 
to the service of God, using the best of the Protestant 
and Catholic ideas both — and in three months I . . . 
had handed in a report which criticized the whole place 
severely — and my resignation. I do not know now how 
much was personal spite on my part and how far I was 
right. And back to the same old circle at Paul Elder's, 
with another bright bubble broken. Then came the 
Carmelites, which cost, I think, more than any, and I 
remember I so dreaded coming back to New York and 
facing everyone that I tried hard to get a position in 
London where women get $5.00 a week as trained libra- 
rians. So back again. Well, education as the world 
hands it out to us is a mighty expensive thing. You 
give so much of your heart's blood and get so little back 
in any tangible form, but 'youth shows but half and 
we have not yet come to the harvesting years. We 
might as well sow hopes and plans and ambitions gen- 
erously 'and stretch through time a hand to reap the 
far-oif interest of tears.' " 

And she said of the number 19 in her life, in the late 
fall of 1918: 

"I was thinking a lot about life this morning, coming 
home from church. You know the 27th of November is 
Mother's anniversary . . . Today is the Feast of the 
Immaculate Conception, always a great Catholic Feast 
. . . Father's birthday was the 23rd of December, he 
was buried on Christmas day — their wedding anniver- 
sary was December 31st — my birthday is January first, 

[ 12 1 



FOREWORD 

J — 's the seventh, Mother's the fifth. So the whole 
season is full of memories, churches, masses, prayers, 
associations. And it struck me as strange that this New 
Year's finishes another half of my lif€. I was nineteen 
that winter. This year I shall be just twice that. Nine- 
teen years were all childhood, dreaming, planning, 
hoping, aspiring, but with no practical care, no responsi- 
bilities of any sort, the most sheltered existence a girl 
could have. And now nineteen of as varied an expe- 
rience as most people know, teaching, housekeeping, 
bringing up the younger children, seven years of Paul 
Elder's, the settlement house, travel, London, Rome, 
Paris, New York, the two convents in Chicago and Lon- 
don, extreme poverty, self-support, comfortable, moder- 
ate means, as you and I had, luxury such as this and the 
months with E — , six years a wife, five years a mother 
when J — 's birthday rounds it out, — ^the earthquake, 
which we thought transcended in size and importance 
anything that would ever happen to us, and then our 
little share of the tragedy of the war. Nineteen full 
years, n'est-ce pas ? And now we start a new life, thank 
God, together." 

She wrote me earlier, in 1917, while I was waiting to 
be called to a Southern training camp: 

"I plan a home some day of the most Spartan sim- 
plicity, all our needs cut down to the lowest and plain- 
est of possessions, and yet a spirit of hospitality, of 
contentment, of gaiety, of self-reliance and mutual help- 
fulness. Books and bookshelves. . . . 

And of the Army: 

"It so often makes me think of the religious orders. 

[ 13 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

The combination of the most heroic impulses with the 
most commonplace drudgery. The extraordinary fluctua- 
tions of feeling, thinking at one time that it is the only 
thing in the world to do . . . and then the feeling, what 
am I doing this for, anyway, other people do not find it 
necessary . . . As one nun said to me, 'You do not have 
to accept a Carmelite vocation — but, you have to either 
accept or refuse it.' The choice is laid before everyone, 
but once it is, all the coward has to do is to stand 
aside." 

This last illustrates how she always saw the neces- 
sities of those she loved in terms of the spirit. Napoleon 
is reported to have said of Jesus Christ: "He speaks 
from the soul as never man spoke; the soul is sufficient 
for him, as he is sufficient for the soul." 

So she thought. And her letters contain many quota- 
tions she formed her life by: 

"God himself is Truth, Charity, and Purity, and the 
three things he hates most are deceit, cruelty, and 
impurity." 

"God make us all saints !" 

And the characteristic ending of a letter, with her full 
name always signed, such as: 

"Lord, grant us in this world knowledge of thy truth, 
and in the world to come life everlasting. 

Teresa." 

But it is impossible to convey what her ways were 
with the children and in the several homes that she made 
so full of dreaming light. She had a keen appreciation 
of the humorousness and quaintness of children. She 

[ 14 ] 



FOREWORD 
was always quoting to me their adventures^ their say- 
ings. She had countless plans and schemes for work in 
the world, and carried out many of them in relation to 
woman suffrage, baby clinics, camp-fire organization for 
the girls of our village, and, during the war, work with 
all the local organizations among women that it called 
into being where she was living at the time. She wanted 
to start a home in America for French widows and 
orphans, though this plan was not possible, — she was 
deeply interested in the work for the protection of young 
girls under Miss Katharine Bement Davis, and only cir- 
cumstances prevented her taking this up during the fall 
of 1918. She had several interviews with Miss Davis 
and showed herself to be the very person who could 
have helped greatly. Self-denial, sacrifice, poverty, 
effort were the watchwords ever recurring to her. Her 
instant concentration upon any book or paper that came 
under her eyes became a family joke. She would be 
lost immediately, oblivious of all surroundings. She 
read and thought with a lively appreciation of the many 
futilities in life and a desire to make her life count. She 
wasted no time on what did not at once attract her spirit, 
except of necessity. And yet she genuinely delighted 
in the small events of a day such as please and awe 
children. And the reason they loved her so was because 
they knew she brought the same guileless point of view 
to solve their bewilderment from larger experience. And 
yet she would write: 

"I zmsh I knew where I stood. I was much happier 
when I was a rigid Catholic. I wish I could fit back 

[ 15 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
into that measure. Can I ever — any more than I can fit 
into the mental measure of a nun?" 

And again her typewriting would exclaim to me: 

"I don't like to write letters to you. I like to talk to 
you. I like still better to be silent with you !" 

When she thought me in need of it she could be very 
self-f orgetf ul : 

"But I want to see the future big with Romance for 
you and I would rather feel you came home from voyages 
two weeks or two months long, with a trunkful of manu- 
scripts ; and that, three years from today, you had 
secured us special rates on a tramp steamer to Plymouth, 
than that you were going to dodge into subways the rest 
of your life." 

"I would infinitely rather you shipped before the 
mast — to Bermuda, Borneo, or Buenos Aires. Don't 
think from this I don't want your face across the table 
from mine every night the rest of my life !" 

Reading to the children, she would retail to me such 
incidents as: 

"Then I read them the Gospel stories, . . . and they 
were too funny — R — trying to show me how Herod 
looked, and J — suggesting charitably that perhaps his 
wife was good. 'No,' said R — , 'the whole family was 
bad!'" 

"In the spring I am going to take an old farmhouse, 
give the children one brown garment apiece, and plan a 
scheme of living that will leave something over for other 
children." 

And this appealed to her: 

"Well, if it is not in the Fall of 1918, it will be in 

[ 16 ] 



FOREWORD 
'one of those houses Our Lord is building' as J — re- 
marks casually. Did I tell you of the little village in 
the North Carolina hills where H — and S. L — spent 
the summer, where the women raised enough sheep to 
cut the wool, card, and spin and weave the clothes the 
family wore?" 

In the winter of 1914 she first visited Augusta, Geor- 
gia, where my father was stationed, and there the cam- 
paign against Child Labor, in which she was always 
vitally interested, became doubly real in necessity to her 
as she went through the cotton mills and saw conditions 
at close range. She always gave what sums she could 
to this cause. In 1915, perhaps the most famous year 
of the woman suffrage battle, she was campaigning, 
speaking, watching all day at the polls in her village of 
Port Washington, Long Island. I remember her speak- 
ing from the stage of the Republican Club against a 
clever anti-suffragist from New York. Her voice reached 
out for something in the hearts of her audience hid 
deeper than the appeal of a mere legislative reform. 
She knew her intellectual ground, but it was something 
deeper than intellectuality that went home. 

In 1918 the Baby Welfare Movement was at its 
height. She became chairman of the Augusta committee 
and established clinics at the different schools and social 
centres. 

So I grasp at her life, giving only a slight indication 
of how full it was. Her friends were of every type and 
kind, of every religious belief or lack of belief, of many 
different political opinions. 

She hated war with her whole soul. It was directly 

[ 17 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

opposed to the words of Christ. But she wrote me in a 
dark time: 

"Italy is bad, Russia is bad, Cambrai is bad. But 
those things are only phases in the eternal struggle of 
right against wrong. And the only thing that matters 
is to personally throw your whole life into the balance 
for the things you believe to be right." 

How far I failed her ! It is given to every man to 
fight somehow through the bewilderment of life with 
the best intentions he can realize. And life seems to 
me like a fierce current on which we are borne rather 
than anything we can really master — except by forget- 
ting it. She has left me with the feeling that I must 
know infinitely more and try to understand better, and 
that we are governed most truly only by the inexplicable. 
"Meanwhile, there is our life here — Well.^" 

The verse in this book is put as nearly as possible in 
the order of its writing. If there is any merit in any 
line of it, the merit is of her making. If there is none, 
the effort was, at least, to reach higher than my grasp — 
because of her. A writer is — and it is the ancient 
curse! — an egotist. But it is not my grief that I wish 
to display here. The human heart can fortunately never 
be put on paper. Only — reality assures of reality. 
Poetry is unconscionable because it follows true con- 
science. I knew, in her, that conscience, — and know it 
in these fantastic shadows cast by her light. If you do 
also, be assured that the light still shines — forever. 

New York City, 
March 25, 1919. 

[ 18 ] 



BEFORE 



THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 

Love, the wild fowler, spreads his nets with care. 
And deep-toned warning both our hearts have heard, 
Even as the old-time low-bell held each bird 
Suddenly trembling, nestling pair by pair 
Dark in the covert, till a blinding glare 
Of torchlight and a clamorous shouted word 
Dazed their bright eyes, and terrified wings upwhirred 
To baffled blundering in the close-drawn snare. 

So, dear, we cower at our warning bell. 

Creep close to me, where shadows gird us round. 

Fear we that wild revealment? Nay, not we! 

"Ah, perilous play, to cross Love's stalking-ground !" 

You whisper . . . yet our eyes, our eyes could tell 

Of hearts that leap to meet their certainty ! 



[21 ] 



THWARTED UTTERANCE 

Why should my clumsy speech so fall astray, 
To uncouth jargon of the every-day 
Turn each fit word and phrase 
I treasured for your praise? 

Discoveries I won to from afar, 

All the rare things you are — nor know you are, — 

In Orient offering 

I haste to you to bring. 

I think to kneel and spread on cloths of dream 
The beautiful, the priceless things you seem; 
Perfume and precious stone. 
That you be shown your own. 

Prince of my vision-palace, I would call 
Your name through trumpets down its central hall, 
And the rapt choral praise 
Before your dais raise; 

And you should see, should hear, be glad and smile 
That I so love you. Ah, but all the while 
I may not show nor teach 

Save through my paupered speech! 

[ 22 ] 



THWARTED UTTERANCE 

Beggar in guise, who am so rich at heart 
Where you have set your pure white shrine apart 
And keep your cherished state 
Dear and immaculate, 

How should you know or hear me, when my tongue 
Turns a dull rebel and doth ready wrong 
To thoughts my dreams repeat? — 
Perhaps too proud, too sweet ! 



[23 ] 



THE SONG OF HER 

Thou art my singing and my voice, 
Thy life the thing that I would sing, 
Perfect past words of perfect choice, 
A lovely and a lasting thing. 
In every deed of thine, sweetheart. 
The poetry of heaven has part 
Beyond the gamut of all art. 
Leaving me mute and marvelling. 

Thy deeds like rhymes I have by heart. 
Thy happy deeds of heavenly choice. 
Deeds that rise rapt and shine apart 
As echoes of a perfect voice 
Rise and rejoice when voices sing, 
Linger and ring — linger and ring 
Till heaven is of their echoing 
And all the heights of heaven rejoice. 

Thou art the song that I would sing. 
The purest song of purest art. 
Till men stand mute for marvelling. 
Aye, till the singing break Man's heart 
Where sorrows glory to rejoice 
In perfect notes of perfect choice 
And strains of One deep, tender voice 
Transfigured joys from sorrows start. 

[ 24 ] 



THE SONG OF HER 

In all this world I have no choice. 
If I would sing a lasting thing, 
Thou art my singing and my voice. 
Poor rhymes that earn no welcoming. 
Rhymes that are nothing learned in art, 
From heaven, from her, such worlds apart,- 
Creep then unto her tender heart 
And from her living learn to sing! 



[25 1 



"ALWAYS I KNOW YOU ANEW" 

I press my hands on my eyes 
And will that you come to me. 
Your semblances shimmer and rise; 
Yet 'tis never your self I see, 
Never the exquisite grace 
And the bright, still flame of you. 
So, when I meet you face to face, 
Always I know you anew ! 

Faint visions I saw, instead 

Of your brows direct and wise. 

Of the little lilt of your head 

And your dark-lashed, sky-clear eyes. 

Of the soft brown braids demure. 

The poise as of quiet light. 

The perfect profile, sweet and pure, — 

Never I dream you aright ! 

And new in endless ways. 

By your blessed heart unplanned. 

It is mine to surprise each sweeter phase, 

Adore you, and understand; 

For through every delicious change in you 

Truth burns with a clear still flame; 

And, though always I know you anew. 

Always I find you the same ! 

[ 26 ] 



THE RIVAL CELESTIAL 

God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone? 

Thou comest when she first draws breath in sleep. 

Thy cloak blue night, glittering with stars of gold. 

Thou standest in her doorway to intone 

The promise of Thy troth that she must keep, 

The wonders of Thy heaven she shall behold. 

Her little room is filled with blinding light, 
And past the darkness of her window-pane 
The faces of glad angels closely press. 
Gesturing for her to j oin their host this night. 
Mount with their cavalcade for Thy domain. 
Then darkness . . . but Thy work is done no less. 

For she hath looked on Thee, and when on me 

Her blue eyes turn by day, they pass me by. 

All offerings^ — even my heart — slip from her hands. 

She moves in dreams of utter bliss to be. 

Longs for what nought of earth may satisfy. 

My heart breaks as I clutch love's breaking strands. 

I clutch — they part — to the wide winds are blown. 
And she stands gazing on a cloud, a star, — 
Blind to earth's heart of love where heaven lies furled. 
God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone? 
Thou hast all powers, dominions, worlds that are; 
And she is all my world — is all my world! 

[ 27 ] 



THE TAMER OF STEEDS 

Beyond this world where skies are free from stain, 
Where brilliant flowers blow in open meads, 
I heard the drumming hoofs of many steeds 
Raise maddening music from a grassy plain. 
They passed, with snorting nostril, flying mane, 
And fiery spirit; and the lad who breeds 
Their mettled herd, and pastures them, and feeds. 
Rode the black foremost, scorning spur or rein. 

His eyes were like a seer's and like a child's. 

His body shone irradiating joy. 

He fought his furious mount with strength and art. 

And then my mind divined the glorious boy 

As Eros, tamer in the heavenly wilds 

Of all the passions of the human heart. 



[ 28 ] 



LOVE IN ARMOR 

Love scorns that Love implore you 
To bind his hurts or heal; 
Prays only, arm around you. 
To draw on hours that hound you, 
To whirl his sword before you 
And fence your path with steel. 

Not for the beauty of you, 
The peace of all your ways, 
He burns — but in your quarrel 
To hold the pass of peril. 
To stand at arms above you 
Against embattled days. 

No comfort for his blundering 

He cries your heart to yield. 

But that his arm enfold you. 

His shield-arm shield and hold you 

Safe, when the foe charge thundering, — 

His sword against the field! 



[ 29 ] 



WARDROBE OF REMEMBRANCE 

Guises your moods once wore are hung within 
The closet of my mind. I take access 
This moment to regard them and confess 
How spare for want of you they hang, and thin. 
Pity seems all their argument may win. 
That fine, frail rustling of each mood's meet dress. 
Yet starts a subtle incense from the press. 
Crushed perfumes of the flowers your thoughts have 
been. 

Sweeter than ever spoken do they come 

Again with finer relish to my mind 

Starved on your absence. False surmise is numb. 

For now in these reliques of you I find 

The smile you meant when rebel lips were dumb, 

The kind words agitation made unkind. 



[ 30 1 



THE SECOND COVENANT 

I dreamt that we were lying 

On a high hill afar, 

Our deepest thoughts replying 

To one lone star. 

High from the vault of heaven 

Its silver rays were shed; 

And the deep peace between us 

Was the peace of the dead. 

Our busy lives were over, 
Our day and night and day; 
Of you and me your lover, 
Nought more to say; 
And sorrows we had vanquished 
And blisses we had known 
And our cares and our kisses 
To the four winds were blown. 

The handclasp of contrition. 
The eyesight of each 
Where each had recognition. 
Were passed, with our speech. 
Vast night declared above us, 
"Now sight and semblance fade. 
No heart's emotion bindeth 
A shadow to a shade." 

[ 31 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
Then within me, lying near you, 
A dark sadness grew 
That, to cherish or to cheer you, 
There was nought left to do. 
Of happy daily service 
Nought now remained to me — 
Of good news for you and comfort 
As once it used to be. 

No beauty save the spirit's 
Abode wide heaven's scrolls; 
No charm the flesh inherits, 
No strength save the soul's; 
As breath upon a mirror 
All recognizing sign. 
Yet nearer far and dearer 
Your soul spoke to mine. 

For viewed not of each other. 
Yet closer side by side 
Than child unto his mother. 
Than husband to bride. 
Thought unto thought you answered. 
One prayer we seemed — one breath; 
And the deep love between us 
Was the love after death. 



[ 32 ] 



DEDICATION TO A FIRST BOOK 

Braver than sea-going ships with the dawn in their 
sails, 
Than the wind before dawn more healing and fragrant 
and free. 
Fairer than sight of a city all white from the mountain- 
top viewed in the vales, 
Or the silver-bright flakes of the moonlight in lakes, 
when the moon rides the clouds and the forest 
awakes, 

You are to me ! 

For you are to me what the bowstring is to the 
shaft. 
Speeding my purpose aloft and aflame and afar. 
Through the thick of the fight, in your eyes' steady light 

my soul hath seen splendor, and laughed. 
Now, however I tend betwixt f oeman and friend through 
the riddle of Life to Death's light at the end, 
I ride for your star ! 



[33 ] 



THE SHADOWED ROAD 

Our shadows moved before us on the road. 

The trees that watched us brooded dark and still, 

Streaked by the frost with phosphorescent gray. 

Chill followed sharply on a gorgeous day 

Of winds, blown leaves, red bonfires. Faintly showed 

The mist-ringed moon above the pasture hill. 

Our shadows moved before us. By our side 

New mystery, throbbing through the rhythm of life 

Echoed our footsteps; and its presence grew 

So real to me, I felt its power endue 

An archangelic shape, whose phantom stride 

Rhymed with our own who walked as man and wife. 

Light fell upon us from the glimmering moon. 

And light upon his face whose name is Love. 

Ah, the rapt eyes, the tender, quickening gaze, 

The splendor on that wild immortal face ! 

Then hurrying cloud possessed the heavens, and soon 

I saw his shadow darken from above. 

Beyond our own it stretched along the way, 
The darkness of Death's cowl, more deep than night. 
Gulfing our own, it blotted out the road, 
The shadow of Love that brightest dreams forebode. 
Yet, in my soul I found a thing to say: 
"Though darkness go before, we walk in light. 

[ 34 ] 



THE SHADOWED ROAD 
"This is Love's answer !" For Death's night must move 
Onward before two hearts that cast out fear. 
Joined by the closest of immortal bonds. 
They shall speak truth when prayer to prayer responds, 
"Death but precedes us as the shadow of Love. 
Light falls about us from a surer sphere!" 



[35] 



LOVE IN THE DAWN 

Dawn, with hallowed flame, seemed to sing your name 
Through our open window as the golden glory came. 
Ardor thrilled me through ; Dawn again — with you ! 
"Up and at the world again ! The world is made anew !" 

Newly on my sight flashed the lovely light, 

All the ringing roads of fame glittered broad and bright. 

On again ! with new visions to pursue ; 

And dawn again, dawn again, dawn again — with you ! 

Other dawns may keep j oy as pure and deep ? 
Dawns of greater splendor may awaken me from sleep? 
Nay! they never can bless a stubborn man 
Like the dawn, the wonder-dawn with which this day 
began ! 

Oh, my deeds must take triumph for its sake ! 

Loud my heart shall sing it while the mind remains 

awake : 
Words I never knew could so thrill me through — 
Dawn again, dawn again, dawn again — with you ! 



[ 36 ] 



"HAD I A CLAIM TO FAME?" 

Had I a claim to fame? 

Little to honor; 
Save when I spoke her name. 

Gazing upon her. 
Then was I crowned of men, 

More than my seeming. 
Youth's glorious hope again 

Bannered my dreaming. 

So, when our day is past; 

When we lie stilly 
Under the earth at last. 

Clod by white lily. 
Give me neither tear nor sigh ; 
Breath but this in passing by. 
Where empearled with morning dew 

The high grass above her 
Waves, and above me too, — 

"He was her lover!" 



[37 ] 



THE ONE 

You are that beloved thing 
Which, through all my seeking 
In silence or in speaking, 
I would find, and finding sing! 

You are that beloved air 
Which, o'er all the chiming 
Of music or of rhyming, 
Reconciles my long despair. 

You are that beloved sight 
Which, beyond life's fairest 
Or rich beauty's rarest. 
Fills my heart vrith true delight. 

You are that beloved place 

Where, past all the portals 

To the pomp of mortals. 

Love perceives the courts of grace. 

And vrhat splendors more, — ah, well ! 
Though I often fashion 
Songs of praise and passion, 
Now — I look — but cannot tell! 



[ 38 ] 



DREAM AND DEED 

All day long I am fashioning crowns, 
Crowns of great price for you ! 
What do I fashion them of? 
Opals and pearls of the dew, 
Diamonds of old renowns. 
Blazing rubies of love, 
And gold from the heart of the golden sun, brought down 

by a sunset djinn, — 
Brighter gold, purer gold than ever gleamed under 
Andvari's fin! 

All day long I am tempering swords, 
Swords for my thought to wield ! 
What is the steel I true. 
And how is their splendor annealed? 
High dreams, to slay evil hordes. 
And flaming thoughts of you 
That light my dark heart from their white-hot forge — a 

glory to take one's breath — 
Like the dove-gray, rose-faint veils of faith you wind 
round the skull of death! 

But when was a sword or a crown 
For praise or for honor meet. 
When the truth transcends, and sees 
Knighthood kneeling at your feet? 
[ 39 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
In the darkness they go down ! 
There is better trust in these: 
Set teeth^ and the furious will to strive through the dust 

of the world for you; 
The hardly builded house of deeds each day, that must 
prove me true ! 



40 1 



A TAPER OF INCENSE 

You are a bannered balcony 

Of God's heraldic house, 

Waving above the dinning throng of the days 

Pennants of purple and oriflammes of crimson 

And cloths of gold. 

Your varying device is on every shining shield 

Of the brilliant row that flames beneath the eaves 

Of that house whose street is cobbled with silver clouds. 

The days go down that street, the troops of days 
Dark and bright, tramping to tread the earth. 
Ever, with trumpets and tumult, rigor or laughter. 
They pass saluting, to press upon the world. 
Regiment after regiment unnumbered. 

Your beauty is a balcony hung with banners 

To wave them on. The foremost have sent your name 

Echoing rearward to hearten new battalions. 

Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag. 

It is the vivid standard of the dawn 

Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers 

That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands. 

It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun 

Pulsing with burning blood — it shattered the mind 

Of heaven into stars. 

The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds 
Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache 

[ 41 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea. 
It has scattered its sparks in the hearts of silken flowers 
And has raised the frozen fury of glaciers against the 

North 
And has permeated the South with its elusive fragrance. 
Auroral over East and West it dances. 

You are a crystal goblet of such wine 

Set in a niche of night 

That when Death quaffs you he must glow to life 

Flushed with eternity. 

O proud Love, so humble and human, 

Yet beyond the gods to exalt — 

O quiet Love, couching with the curled might and 
majesty 

Of tawny leopards ! 

O tamed tiger, Love, whose golden eyes 

Weep for the thrift of angels ! 

Thou pinnacled pain of the midnight, 

Rose-strewer of day lit mire. 

Transfiguration of our futile lives, 

Dazzler into the secret courts of heaven — 

Thou whose passion is written in all men's blood and 
tears 

And in silver letters upon the books of God — 

Make me to stand erect, and walk with danger, 

And strive like a flame ! 

For Thou and I are struck as cymbals of God's exulta- 
tion 

In Life, His song! 

[ 42 ] 



TO PURITY 

God knows that you are beautiful as Death 

Chanced on in some hot, sunlit forest-clearing 

Where — burst from tangled thickets, with desperate 

breath — 
My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing 
So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing, — 
Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue 
Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing! 
Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you ! 

God knows that you are passionate as Life, 
On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending, — 
Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife 
Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bend- 
ing, — 
Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending, — 
Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through. 
To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending. 
Ah, holy goddess, thus terrible are you! 

God knows that you are hated as men hate 
Only the highest and the uttermost presence. 
For in your eyes is anger to break fate 
And life's too blissful sweet is all your essence. 
Your glory seethed the suns to incandescence. 
You are flame — flame ! Our creeds your orb unto 

[ 43 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
Are but thin shadowy demilunes and crescents, — 
Immortal goddess, so infinite are you ! 

Infinite in range of life, the worm you quicken 

From crashing suns. . . . "Let there be light!" you 

said. 
Light was, and life, — Man rose, and Man fell stricken 
By your relentless power that through him sped; 
And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead. 
Dragging these heavy laws you never knew 
Till you recoiled from him astonished, — 
Ah, holy goddess, so wonderful were you ! 

So now Man hath smeared filth upon your altar. 
And, slant-eyed and slime-lipped, wrought sins apart. 
His tongue intones an abominable psalter 
Hoarsely, and on his brows cold sweat-drops start, — 
Nor through your oracles speaks he from his heart, 
Hearing you in the porches of his ears; 
His eyes are blind of you, where only smart 
The sick revulsions of his ignorant tears. 

No! He intones by rote a coded praise. 

Unto a leering two-faced god falls prone, 

And smears with lust and fear his alternate days 

For monstrous imaginations to atone; 

For you, most instant, most ardent, — you are flown 

Like fumes to his clownish brain, and in his fear 

He dreams you a eunuch carved of pallid stone 

Warning, "Beware all ye who enter here!" 

[ 44 ] 



TO PURITY 
God knows you are as clean as the sea-gust 
Uproarious round those poppied headlands high 
Where huge green seas beneath, in billows upthrust, 
Scatter snow-amethysts to the bright sapphire sky, — 
Or music on which fusillade the hoof-beats by 
Of screaming valkyr-steeds, to exalted strife! 
You are love's seal and love's nobility, 
And the burning flame, the aching flame of Life ! 

Therefore, transfigurer of the flesh, — clear-shining 

Redeemer of the coinage passed for base, — 

Strong flawless column, round which all vipers twining 

Hiss out their venom and die on their disgrace, — 

Oh radiant form, oh rapt victorious face 

Of our dreams of love, toward whom all brave and true 

Strain upward, seeking out your holiest place, — 

This praise I raise, this praise I raise to you ! 



[ 45 ] 



ATONEMENT 

Through flamelit Hades 
To win a realm, 
I rode with my lady's 
Sleeve on my helm. 
With fiends around me 
And fiends before, 
I rode, and found me 
At an iron door. 

My pulses hammered. 

I clubbed my spear 

And knocked. Fiends clamored. 

I felt Man's fear 

When mysteries awe him. 

The door, with din. 

Swung wide. I saw him 

Who sat therein. 

Oh, amaranthine 
Are Love's estates, 
But Rhadamanthine 
The Judge awaits. 
My blazon and banner 
He stared them through 
And said, "What manner 
Of man are you?" 

[46 ] 



ATONEMENT 
I stood stripped naked, 
Stark to atone. 
My body ached 
Through every bone. 
A blast blew through me. 
I drank black gall. 
I saw he knew me. 
I told him all. 

"The heart I stare in 
Is black as night/' 
He said, "but therein 
There burns a light. 
White hands encore it 
To guard its grace, 
And strangely o'er it 
Bends a still face. 

"Small light — great wonder! 

Through all my hall 

You flash asunder 

The murky pall. 

Walls grow unreal — 

All Hell a wraith, — 

Oh white, ideal 

Flame of her faith !" 

"Here I surrender. 
White flame of trust! 
Knave, strike some splendor 
From this your dust. 

[47 1 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 
Oh gross, weak, dumb thing, 
Rise — dare a part ! 
For here — is something 
That breaks my heart I" 



I 48 ] 



THE ADORATION 



Now, like withdrawing music 
Where pillared aisles implore. 
You are a vanished choir, 
A soft-closed door. 

Victorious voices blended 
Fade, and I kneel still-hearted. 
Sudden my life is ended. 
We have parted. 

Lost in the vault's vast splendor 
My ghost goes rising, thinning. 
Can heartbreak be an end, or 
Some strange beginning? 



[49 ] 



TALISMAN 

Each cup shall be broken, 
Each tower shall fall, 
All drink be bitter, 
Bitter as gall, 
The dark heart go lonely — 
Save for one tower, 
One cyathus only. 
One wine of power! 

My love's white beauty 

Is this tower, 

The wine of her beauty 

My wine of power. 

The cup of her spirit 

Mine to drain 

With awful knowledge 

And trembling pain. 

She only, she only 
Stands on the stars. 
Her small hands grapple 
Heaven's black bars. 
Only her deep love 
Pays the price 
Of a sight of the vistas 
Of paradise. 

[ 50 ] 



TALISMAN 
Each goblet may shatter. 
Each tower may fall, 
Low livid sunset 
Darken on all — 
In her soul's high tower 
My love pours wine, 
And the glory and the power 
Of the stars are mine ! 



[51 ] 



RECOGNITION 

Like the twilight blowing over sunset water 
Under high holy hills purple-mirrored in a mere, 
Quietly and smiling, my dear love brought her 
Heart to my heart, and through the dusk drew near; 

Drew to me near, drew my brows up to the tender 
Caress of her hands. And I lifted up my eyes 
To hers, and deep within them saw a silent splendor 
More still, more strange than the planets' in the skies. 

Each gazed on each. O what is mortal seeing 
To the glory of that depth, to the glory of that height 
Through veils revealed, when all the gates of being 
Burst open to a torrent of such blinding light ! 

Yes, and here I stand warped by life's derision, 
A mountebank grimacing lest at last I weep. 
What man could tell that I had ever seen a vision 
More wonderful than any on the steeps of sleep.'* 

Days come, days go, as the clock ticks hours. 
Years loom, years pass; the shadows rise. . . . 
Like the twilight breathing over holy flowers 
Once my love drew near. And I lifted up my eyes . . 



[ 52 ] 



TRIBUTE 

Remembering one woman I have seen 

And have known. 

Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, 

A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown. 

Solicitude, white ardor in a face. 

Motions like water under the moon's grace, — 

I wonder much how men can be so base, 

So worse than stone. 

Oh murmurings of music through the world. 

Ye women born 

To arduous things and angers, and upwhirled 

Like tongues of flame through smoke of the world's 

scorn. 
Crystalline lights, awful and fitful gleams 
Of reconciliation with our dreams. 
Through you alone the world's true spirit streams 
Sounding her silver horn. 

All things I wish for you that height may hold. 

Who hold the race, 

Oh desperate runners on the track unrolled 

Over the highlands now, in the sun's face; 

O swift and free, hoverers on the verge 

Whence the impossible things we mocked emerge, — 

O wings — wings — sliding the starry surge 

And veering on the chase ! 

[ 53 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

The satyr and the centaur race below 

Deriding wings above. 

Manful they meet and fight to overthrow 

All they are wearied of, — 

Manful they build, demolish, drive, are driven, — 

But you are free, who have more greatly striven. 

Yours is the light above their lightless heaven. 

For yours is Love! 



[ 54 ] 



THE SILVER HIND 

Through the black forest 
You glance^ you start, — 
Through the black forest 
That is my heart ! 
Beautiful, silver-heeled. 
Swift as wind, 
Topping the brake 
Like a flying hind ! 

I have a bugle 

Of ivory 

The wizard of twilight 

Gave to me. 

I hear it winding in my heart. 

In the black forest, where you start. 

And I know. 

Like huntsmen in gold and green. 

That my thoughts spur past 

Where you have been. 

And, like hounds that have slipped the leash. 

They race, — 

Bell-tongued brachets 

Upon your trace. 

Through the black forest 
You reach, you run, 

[ 55 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Out of the shadow. 

Into the sun. 

And the hunt behind 

Is lyric and loud 

Where horses and hounds 

And huntsmen crowd. . . . 

But you are gone — 

Oh, you are gone 

Out to the blaze and glory of dawn ! 

Leaving the print of blood-red anemones 

In the mould, and echoes of ancient glees 

Shaking like silver leaves on my sombre trees ! 



[ 56 ] 



ARISTEAS RELATES HIS YOUTH 

{Who, in his age, was reported a magician throughout 
all Greece, as it was said that his soul could leave his 
body at will.) 

Early rose was the light 

As I sought the portico 

Whence her wings had fluttered in flight 

And with surge and flow 

Had risen to soar, and go 

Out, out over the sea, 

Dwindling white and soft and slow 

To a memory. 

Oh, grief of all years to be! 
Most miserable of men! 
My throat ached with my tears. 
As a sword driven through my ears 
Was my anguish then. 

Dark were the rooms where they lay 
Who loved in the flesh 
(Diana's disciples they said!) 
In that lupanar of the dead. 
Sweet was the flesh they loved. 
Graceful the limbs that moved. 
Wild the passion that they 

[57 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Desired afresh 

In the night. Were they not of the world, 

Of lust and toil and war? 

And I — I too? 

Yea — till that music swirled 

About me^ and I knew 

I was visited of a star! 

A star it was grew and grew 
(As hot in the dark I lay, 
Panting, after the feast,) 
Glorious out of the east. 
And a face that made my soul 
A slowly uncrumpling scroll. 
It glimmered so near and fey! 

Her voice rippled like water 

In the light gold-green 

Of some mid-noon ravine. 

She stooped, the moon's daughter, 

With her hand underneath my head 

And her lips on the lips of the dead. 

I arose from my rumpled bed. 

A waterfall sliding green 
In a silver-mosaicked screen 
We two trod under; 

Then I turned where her light touch led. 
Trembling but unafraid. 
Across some Elysian sod, 
Winged of heel, I floated — a god! — 

[ 58 ] 



ARISTEAS RELATES HIS YOUTH 

Down and into a moon-filled glade, 
A glade of wonder. . . . 

But the east grew steadily bright, 

A glaring sea of light. 

I throbbed to drums of dread. 

And my eyes still held her flight 

When she broke that dream with one kiss 

Of agonizing bliss. 

Stood in streaming flame by my bed, 

Gestured, and fled. 

Between the pillars I saw. 

Beyond the pillars I heard 

Wings of no mortal bird 

Flare and withdraw. 

And they who had feasted and passioned 

Slept, finding light no bar. 

Slept in their bodies' ease. 

But under those rustling seas 

That lapped at the water-stair 

I ached to plunge my despair 

And my heart, that some grim' God fashioned 

To be visited of a star ! 



[59 1 



MAN POSSESSED 

Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that 
grieve. 

Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe. 

I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me. 

On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free. 

Still I love high winds and the great running and the 
steep verge. 

But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, 
and stars emerge 

High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep. 

And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eye- 
lids droop with sleep. 

Yet it is not this has shaken my soul in me. 

Not the bounds of life have overtaken my will to be free, 

But scent and sound past mete and bound, and a sign — 

a sign 
That no other eyes can recognize, that is only mine. 
I hardly know what I believe or what I mean 
Save there is sweetness round my heart and the world 

a screen 
Of interwoven mystery to a world unseen. 

Can one drink the air, can one seize the sea, can one 

grasp the fire? 
Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire. 

[ 60 ] 



MAN POSSESSED 
The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire 
And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering 

brains that tire. 
That is all ! Nor can I fall now in the race. 
As a second breath to a runner comes my soul takes up 

the pace — 
For I dreamed the world ran with me in a far and starry 

place. 

Gray as sea-mist driven were the shapes that strove 
With the strength of greed and hate and the greater 

strength of love. 
I saw their eyes like phosphorus, blue fog about them 

wove. 
I saw the limbs glimmer and I heard the sighing come 
From this side and from that, as our host ran dumb 
Over a silver shining plain, to some strange end, to 

some — 
Was it goal or heaven or city? — some agonizing gleam 
That broke the heart for pity and made the eyes stream. 
Above the pallor of that race our spent breath rose like 

steam. 
Yet our red hearts pulsed within us, as we ran, in my 

dream. 

A glow below the ghostly surf that swirled and surged 

and turned 
Came from human hearts visible that throbbed and beat 

and burned. 
And like sand of human ashes was the soil our feet 

spurned. 

[ 61 1 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

All the stars above us thronged the dome of space, 
Poised like javeliniers, with glinting spear or mace. 
Watchful of our running and to spoil our race. 
And all the souls that ran, ran with drawn and lifted 
face. 

This too was the real. I ran with dogged heart. 
I parched like a desert, tortured in every part. 
I knew not what city — nor why the race should start. 

Then a singing touched me, and the scent of a flower, 
A child's laugh, and the crying of a woman in her hour, 
And a comrade's courage — and a subtle power 
Not of worldly schemes and ways crept along my veins. 
And my heart went ablaze and consumed its many stains. 
And my lips were touched with wine and my body felt 

no pains. 
Then it passed — and yet again it came and it passed — 
Yet again and yet again, till I toiled at last 
In the old ironic torture, bound fast, bound fast. 

But as I looked I saw how it came and went, 
That touch, that communion, almost inevident. 
Through the host of these my brothers who ran nigh 

spent. 
When it came they ran like men with life and lung 
And the wind went by them like a song bravely sung, 
Their hearts spread wide radiance, their limbs glowed 

young. 
It passed, and they were phantoms with phantom arms 

that swung. 

[ 62 1 



MAN POSSESSED 

Here and there a true form some spirit would endue 
For moments, but we mortals were but ghosts I knew. 
Then a light low down before us to a distant landscape 

grew. 
The stars from heaven crowded down. I knew our race 

was through. 
The stars from heaven crowded down intolerably bright 
With dizzying brilliance, height above armored height. 
Every star upcast a spear and hurled it down to smite. 

There was one strange thought in me. It echoed through 

my head 
As some titanic corridor echoes a giant tread, 
Only a little thing that my love once had said. 
Common daily speech, a comforting word 
Tossed to me as lightly as crumbs to a bird. 
But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred 
My self to a purpose at last not self could mar. 
And I cried "We are delivered I" and I heard it echo far 
Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star. 

So then I was running through poppies that I knew 

Above a blue sea basking — and you — and you 

Were running on the headland in the world made anew. 

I know some force is mighty, some force I cannot reach. 
I know that words are said to me that are not said with 

speech. 
My heart has learned a lesson that I can never teach. 
Only this I know, that I am overtaken 
By a swifter runner Whose breath is never shaken, 

[ 63 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

That I follow on His pace, and that round me, as I 

waken. 
Are the headlands of home and the blue sea swinging 
And the flowers of the valleys their fresh scents flinging 
And the prophets and the poets, with their singing — 

with their singing! 



[ 64 ] 



MINIATURE 

For all your gestures, for your gray-blue eyes 

And Irish mouth, and hair that makes you child, 

When shaken out at evening; for your mirth 

And your quick pity, and your mother's breast; 

For the great tenderness that you have given 

And the rich dreams through purple-flowing night, 

The holy lull of effort and the peace 

Of a deep love; because of all these things. 

Wherever I should be, — ^beyond what seas 

Of an enchanted music, on what isles, 

I know not, of a strange irradiance, 

In dream or life or death, — dissatisfied 

With splendor or white mystery, my heart 

Would break — my heart would break — never to hear 

Your tones again or feel your hair again 

Beneath my lips, or see your lifted eyes 

Brimming with all the secrets of the stars ! 



[ 65 ] 



DEATH WILL MAKE CLEAR 

What in the night says the clock that ticks time to 

eternity, 
Swimmer of waves of your thought that are dark waves 

and deep? 
What in the night says the moon, from her patient 

infinity. 
Laying pale hands on your heart, hands of peace and of 

sleep ? 
What say the stars to her eyes, who has loosed by the 

window 
The billow of her hair, as the dark of the trees feels 

her fear? 
And over the cradle what whisper is breathing, is breath- 
ing. 
As over the bed of the bride or the catafalqued bier. 
Or over the flung and clawed earth where a soldier is 

dying? 
"Death will make clear !" 

Furious and fleet is man's soul, like a hound through the 

woodland. 
On through the tangle of trees and the green and the 

gold. 
Yes, for the senses are goads, but the lineage noble, 
Not for the warren or hutch to be cornered and sold. 

[ Q^ ] 



DEATH WILL MAKE CLEAR 
Then there is freedom and ease, and a dream that per- 
suades one 
On, till the track quakes on black whence the death- 
lilies peer. 
So the bronzed shoulder, that sets to the crust of the 

boulder 
Heaving it up — as the mill-wheel that turns at the weir — 
Bring — ? They bring silence and candles and creaking 

and whispers. 
Death will make clear. 

Why that white work from the crag and the hands of the 

sculptor 
Smitten in a moment to rubble as earth heaves her 

breast? 
Why that intangible glory, remote but God-in-us, 
Golden and crumbling to pathos of dusk in the west? 
Why the pure curve of the arm and the breast of a 

mother. 
Yes, and the proud head of man held erect on the mere 
Void of blue heaven, — the seas and the ships and the 

trumpets. 
Towers and horizons, all shouting? The answer is here, 
Here in thy breast, son of man, sorry son of the ages. 
Death will make clear. 

Lord of the mighty, as Lord of the weak and the lowly, 
Lord of the sage and the madman, of clean and unclean; 
Breeder of suns and of excrement, loathly and holy, 
Graving the skull with the pity of all that had been, — 
Death, oh thou graver of countenance knighted austerely, 

[ 67 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Yea^ on the pitiful clay, such poor flesh in its fear 

Of God and the soul and the singing of stars that may 

teach us 
Wisdom at last, — oh thou ultimate searcher and seer, 
Beckon — I follow. At last on my lips set thy finger; 
Thou wilt make clear ! 



[68 ] 



SUNLIGHT 

Sunlight is full of age. 
Ah, so old! 
Older than any sage 
Has ever told! 

The draught our Lord quaffed up 
To the bloody lees; 
The aching hemlock cup 
Of Socrates. 

It is a golden sword; 
The veil of the Grail; 
The unfathomable Word 
That will not fail. 

Along a summer street 
It often lies 
Shimmering to repeat 
Immortal paradise. 

As a mountain lake can mirror 
The exalted with the near. 
Heaven's wonder and terror — 
Both shine here. 

It says all things in nought; 
And, saying them, passes 

[ 69 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

To gild like gentle thought 
Trees and grasses. 

It sways upon the ocean 

Like a god asleep 

Where the waves' wandering motion 

Hides the deep. 

It shafts through forest aisles 

Like miracle; 

It trembles and smiles 

On the lip of Hell. 

It has touched Greece and Rome 
And Persia's might — 
And stirs the vines of home 
With flickering light. 

It lay on Cain's hot neck 
As he stooped to slay. 
David's stone from the beck 
Glittered its day. 

Cleopatra gazed upon it 
Through shadowed lids. 
High halls they built to shun it 
In the Pyramids. 

It opens babies* hands 
That crawl to snatch its beams. 
Through hovels in ancient lands 
Its splendor streams. 

[ 70 1 



SUNLIGHT 
Eternal wells of light 
Its largeness shows. 
There shall be no more night 
Its conscience knows. 

It is a smiling stranger, 
A fainting hour. 
Love and peace and danger 
And the mock of power. 

Yet have I said no word 
Of what it is. 
Only — my heart is stirred 
By its mysteries ! 



71 



AND A LONG WAY OFF HE SAW 
FAIRYLAND 

I lived once with fairies, 

(And I know they're true fairies!) 

One lifts laughing eyes 

In a way I most admire. 

Truth goes by contraries. 

For you don't know they're fairies 

Till there isn't any firelight, 

Nor song beside the fire. 

One fairy's small to hold, 

And her hair is fairy gold. 

One's a feminine fairy 

With unusual address. 

One fairy's just Jim. 

You just look and love him. 

With his nonsense and his laugh 

And his sturdy steadfastness. 

\ 
And the fairy queen I knew 

Has eyes that are blue. 

Has moods that are decided. 

And courage that denies 

It is ever brave at all. 

She mends them when they fall ; 

She tends the little fairies 

In absurd, delightful wise. 

[ 72 ] 



AND A LONG WAY OFF HE SAW FAIRYLAND 

They bring her thoughts like birds 
And very funny words 
And mountainous decisions 
And things to make you cry. 
But, after all, it's airy 
In the house of a fairy. 
With a face like that to sob to 
And those arms close by. 

I lived once with a fairy. 
I was wild and contrary. 
I'm still wild and contrary. 
But her heart's a heart for two. 
She sees rooms of starry graces. 
Kind firelight on our faces, 
And a watch on sleeping fairies. 
And the fairy home come true. 
Once again, with gentle evening 
And the dreaming trees, come true. 



[ 73 1 



IN TIME OF TROUBLE 

In memory of your desolate eyes I know 
That words are words, with nothing to gainsay 
The testimony of pain, the heavy day; 
But searching in the ruins of overthrow 
I gathered you this wreath that now I show; 
Small and barbaric brightness on the gray, — 
Glimmering irony, perhaps. I lay 
It down before your eyes, and softly go. 

You are a vista blundered on in Arden 

Where the fool grasps his bells, that he may hark; 

A sudden skyward path where cliiFs are warden 

Of waves that foam to reach a high tide-mark; 

Whisper of blossoms in a midnight garden; 

A fountain whitely flowering on the dark. 



[ 74 ] 



ANOMALY 

Men who are fain to change^ look wizenedly 

Into the flowing mirror of your thought 

And see on what strange reefs your j oys are caught 

And contemplate your vexed variety: 

Grief that was hooded for eternity 

Casting the stole for spangled domino, 

Awe on its pinnacle jigging heel and toe. 

Love laughing into hate and mockery. 

What shoots the warp to patterns that reblend 

And spread and fade, — and working out what end.^ 

In time of pain why be as voluble 

As one who tells an endless useless sum, 

Yet simple clay, pallid and deaf and dumb 

Through the one moment forging Heaven or Hell ? 



[ 75 ] 



THE LOVER 

I rooted silver stars from heaven in showers. 

Rived adamant to show an azure gap. 

Captured the very Psyche in my cap. 

Filched from the sack of Time six diamond hours. 

Hyperborean in my crown of flowers 

I ran and leapt the cliff of thunderclap 

Plunging through green sea-light where bronze fronds 

wrap 
Crumbling pearl palaces and coral bowers. 

Now — "Could I move, all humankind would pant 
Even to think such effort ! Could my songs 
Cry out, dusked heaven would shudder at my wrongs !" 
I moaned, and then looked flushed and palpitant 
On Love's rapt face, that frenzied flagellant 
Wielding with zeal the welting golden thongs. 



[ 76 ] 



JUDGMENT 

Down the deep steps of stone through iron doors 
I entered that red room and saw the rack_, 
And round the walls I saw them sit in black. 
The immutable and urgent councillors. 
My heart was clotted with an old remorse. 
Despair a vulture fast upon my back. 
I saw my body like an empty sack 
Tossed disarticulate on grated floors. 

But even a wilder wonder at this crime 

Tried in the dungeon of my own grim life 

Woke, as your memory awoke with tune 

That crazed the very walls. I stared through Time 

Like to a man who stands with smoking knife 

Above his dead, and sees the rising moon. 



[ 77 ] 



UNFORGOTTEN 

Wakening in the night, the pain that slumber 

Strikes with her mace of silence dead and dumb 

Loomed over me and, formless, said, "I come ! 

Bringing illusions lost beyond all number. 

Rigid you lie, yet for a little cumber 

This flaming world, where some die proudly, some 

Glitter like granite, or dream millenium." 

It left me toiled in mountainous clouds of umber. 

I lay sustaining all the old emotion. 
Numbed as beneath the blows of iron cars. 
Then slowly, slowly some supreme devotion 
Crept down, and drew me out of ageless wars, 
Like a dear Voice heard over darkened ocean 
When all dim heaven is trembling into stars. 



[ 78] 



THE PALE DANCER 

My heart's a still shore; all the golden sails are gone. 
A pale, silver floor in the hugeness of dawn 
My heart lies once more, and the little ripples beat 
This small, idle tune, like the fall of elves' feet, 
"Oh, come, airy dancer — come dance on us. Sweet !" 

She comes like a breeze in the midnight of May. 

The tumbling of the seas makes a tune far away. 

She comes with closed eyes, with light footsteps she 

nears. 
And she sings the low song that each lipping ripple 

hears. 
"In love there is laughter, and after — come tears !" 

She dances like the moonlight — light, languorous, 

aswoon. 
Her face floats uplifted, a flower to the moon. 
To the moon pale in heaven and the dawn coming slow. 
And under her measure the ripples breathe low, 
"The dancer, the dancer from ages ago !" 

Oh_5 dance me no more ! Witching dancer be gone ! 
For my heart's a still shore in the hugeness of dawn. 
And some answer is thrilling, is trembling for me 
In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea. 
And the little ripples whisper, "What thing can it be?" 

[ 79 ] 



PERPETUAL IJGHT 

Pale dancer, pale dancer, atread without breath, 
Majestic and yearning and brooding as death, 
Oh, passion of my heart, oh, enchanted despair 
That glides before God like a bird from a snare, 
Return, then, return to me, clothe me with care!- 
But the beautiful dancer has vanished in air. 



[ 80 ] 



PREMONITION 

(^Written in absence and unaware of her desperate condi- 
tion, a few days before her death.) 

This is the song I shall make. 

Love with white wing bids it wake. 

Love with dark wing bids it die. 

Trailing to dimness^ the flood of my passion. 

Glittering to darkness,, the necklace I fashion 

To loop on the breast of the sky ! 

I have climbed high, even I, 
Following a light through a rift in the blue, 
Following a silence that pierced like a cry, 
Following the image of you. 

This is the song I will fashion for you. 

Oh ragged-jawed, jagged-toothed Dragon of Time, 
What will you do with the weft of my rhyme. 
You who have pawed every jewel in slime — 
You! 

No, in this space between darkness and light. 

Holiness gleams like a rift in the night 

Here where I stand and command the full height. 

All of the glory and gall . . . 

Wrestle and struggle and surge for the height — 

And fall. . . . 

[ 81 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Pain^ your pale hands are clenched loose in my hair. 

My heaving breast to your bleakness is bare. 

Each of the other as brothers aware, 

Backward and forward we strain. 

What is this struggle, why my despair, 

Pain.? 

God is somewhere in the night. 

Listen ! The night is so still . 

God could be heard if he walked on the height 

As a man at night will walk on a hill 

Lulled by the darkness and dim. 

Heaven is the hill under Him. 

Is there not glimmer of light at its rim.^* 

Pain.f* Ah the struggle again. 

Drive then your darts in me, drive ! 

Pang after pang of it. Pain. 

Wounds that will wake me alive. 

Listen ! The night is a hive 

Of sound like a swarming of myriad bees. 

Drive the gold darts in me, whet them and drive. 

Pain ! But his shadow flees. 

What is this plain, whose these shapes that connive 

Peace ? 

Peace.? But your garment is smirched 
With grime and the stain of blood! 
Peace ! When I struggled and searched. 
Ah, when have I understood.? 
I who was broken and spent, 

[ 83 ] 



PREMONITION 

I who was baflfled, and meant 
Only to wrench my release ! 

Who are Those crouching behind you, so still and intent, 
Peace ? 

Memories? Why do they haunt? 

Lust and vainglory and pride? 

What is it now of my victory they want? 

What of you, Peace, the crucified? 

This is the height. Can they scan it? 

This is no space-festering planet. 

This is no rack of vain tears ! 

Even a dream, can they cloud it and ban it, — 

Fears ? 

Years go over me, cloud me and cover me. 
Years — haunted years. 

Only one thing I say over and over 
Under that catafalque glooming to cover 
My shame and disaster and wraith of faith. 
Only one thing I say over and over. 
Your name, said under my breath. 

There, like a storm on the sea line, you hover, 
Death ! 

Ripples and eddies and whirlpools of light 
Swirling like veils on the face of the night. 
Down from the infinite, down from the height 
Stricken and whirled, 

[ 83 1 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Swept like a leaf on the blast of the night 
Back to the world! 

Breathing beside me — your breath ! 

Listen ! The night is so still 

God could be heard if he talked with Death 

As a man at night might talk on a hill 

Gently and sad to a friend 

Of the things we always intend . . . 

Night without end for Him — night without end 

This is the song I have made 

Of the night when I was afraid. 

Of the night too breathless, too still, 

When I lay like stone — alone — alone. 

However near me the love we kill. 

What of the love we kill? 

Pride that died and darkness that grew ! 
This is the song I began to wreathe . . . 
Ah, but God remembered, — it is not true ! 
And you — you live, you breathe! 



[ 84 ] 



AFTER 



On Sunday in the sunlight 

With brightness round her strown 

And murmuring beauty of the sky 

At last her very own^ 

She who had loved all children 

And all high things and clean 

Turned away to silentness 

And bliss unseen. 

Rending^ blinding anguish, 
Is all a man can know; 
Yet still I kneel beside her 
For she would have it so, 
Kneel and pray beside her 
In light she left behind — 
Light and love in silentness, 
Sight to the blind. 

Oh living light burn through me! 

Oh speak, as spoke to me 

Her deep sweet eyes and faithful, 

Voice on Calvary ! 

Oh light be near and shining. 

Nearer than I guess. 

And teach me that true language 

Of silentness ! 

[ 87 ] 



II 



If now I fall away 

From faith, may never day 

Shine as it shone 

With inmost sanctities 

Of those sun-glittering trees— 

We two alone. 

The darkness toils and heaves. 
The Wood of Glittering Leaves 
You gave — ^you gave. 
Dearest in life and death. 
Dearest with every breath. 
Lamp of the brave! 

You came in sunlight, still 
As God, with Whom your will 
Was always one. 
You knew me, and you knew 
I read your presence through 
That sacred sun. 

League upon league of light. 

As the train raced the night. 

With night on me. 

With pain that gripped and wrung 

As the cars clashed and swung, — 

I yet could see 

[88] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

The slim trees of that wood 
Brighter than tears or blood, 
Fairy with day; 

That dark marsh land made bright, 
Veiled in miraculous light, — 
Your way ! 

I hold it fast. I hold 
All that mysterious gold, 
All that it weaves 
Of Heaven to understand — 
Our radiant bridal land 
Of glittering leaves. 



[ 89 ] 



Ill 



Honest hands to help, honest eyes to see, 

Light that lives in God: 
Such our dearest was, such will ever be 

Under Heaven. 
Nothing in this life gives to you and me 

Such a sunlight-shod. 
Sunlight-crowned delight in our memory 

As was given. 

There was not a harm in these roaring hours 

That could touch Her head 
Perfect was Her charm borne against the powers 

Gnashing still. 
In her heart a field laughed with golden flowers 

Where Her soul could tread. 
Swift, serene, she passed all that snarls and cowers. 

White of will. 

Song can give her nothing. We who brave the night 

Say Her name again 
Raise it like a cup full of sacred light 

Up to Heaven. 
Now we know our pain blinding, burning bright 

In the world of men. 
Yet we know our joy, knowing now aright 

What was given. 

[ 90 ] 



IV 



Base rewards and glamours, the beating tide of hours. 
The crying and clamors and the surge of silent powers 
Pass me and pass me now. Silently I go 
The one road, the only road I know. 

Oh, bare and bright as dreams 

And laced with silver streams 

Lies the land on either hand, past the darkness and 

dread. 
Though a man must grip his soul lest it start from all 

control. 
And must bow his head. 

Where are your footprints on air that I may find them? 
Where your radiant garments that I may hide behind 

them } 
No, it is my own road, straight and black 
That turns not back. 

I will search till the darkness sears on either hand 

With the drifting sparkles of some fiery brand. 

Of some pain that lights me nearer to the land of your 

endeavor. 
I will search forever. 

The torrent of the hours like a veil veiling heaven. 
The war with bitter powers — I am given. 

[ 91 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

But light that you left me — light, your own decision, 
Your secret and your vision. 

Time? What is Time now. Standing to the thong 

And the dream that is passing, time is not long. 

And I shall find the valley past the mountains that 

defeat me, 
And see you come to meet me. 



[ 92 



Not all the spoils you cast, not all the dark was bearing 
In dream across the sea, across the murmurous sea; 
Not beauty that has passed or crowns the stars were 

wearing 
Or flame that fierce and fast through darkness hunted 

me; 
Not the frustrate desire, the web of memory broken, 
The silence where your speech dizzies through all the 

air ; 
Not these elude my reach when the dark hours have 

spoken 
As does that priceless token, your soul of passionate 

prayer. 

Oh race that falters on, the striving and the stricken 
Passing with fruits and garlands and dust upon the 

head; 
Oh burning sunset gone wherein was hope to quicken 
The surge of starry dawn rising above the dead; 
Oh clamor over shame, yoke of the little-wiser 
On the unwilling shoulders, clenched by the quivering 

hands ; 
Patience and proof that were and are your still appriser 
Now veil her and disguise her, gone from the spectral 

lands. 

[ 93 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

The spectral lands of time, the eternal torrent pouring 

Of dark and light around us, who fear both dark and 
light; 

And grief that wails in rhyme, and flesh the soul abhor- 
ring. 

And dismal pantomine played on a stage moon-bright; 

Why should such things as these assail her happy 
meadow. 

Creep on the court of children, come crying through 
the shine? 

We who are too unskilled even to taunt the shadow 

Groan only in the darkness and spill the precious wine! 

For round us beating, beating her wings are in the 

mirror 
Of sleep, the mirror of silence built up with perilous 

breath. 
And in our conscience meeting her smile is on the terror 
That chains us round with error and desperate fear of 

death ; 
Kind as a child's small hands her faithfulness is round 

us 
With swift and fading gestures, wise as a child is wise ; 
Out of the gathering clouds that curtain and confound 

us. 
Ecstasy and enchantment — sudden and swift, her eyes ! 

The hills shall lay away their sombreness unspoken. 
The seas shall hush their murmur, the saddened wind 
be still, 

[ 94 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

When the long league of silence 'twixt earth and beast 

is broken 
When at the end of all things the stones speak on the 

hill. 
Then Calvary shall cry with glorious joy to heaven, 
Aceldama be hearkened and purged by words aware, — 
For that in days gone by her voice to Flis was given, 
And to the joy of heaven her soul of passionate prayer. 



[ 95 ] 



VI 



I listened to the wind who speaks of finding 
Among the litter of his blown leaves of days 
All rainbow gold of tears that are so blinding; 
And then again he says 
Something of glittering jewels in the haze, 
Incense of praise, myrtles and bays for binding 
The wounds that blossom blood upon his ways. 

I listened to the sun who can recover 

Miraculous instants of an earlier time 

Surprise Her eyes alinger on her lover 

And run like rhyme 

On leaf and stream. He spoke of dream and clime 

Sacred with everlasting Spring, ahover 

With light more cadenced than bright bells in chime. 

I listened to the earth and sea. Their voices. 
Too mixed with men^ came sombrer and more sad. 
They droned awhile of all the tangled choices 
That every man has had. 

And moaned like ancients with mere age gone mad 
And left me nothing that reasons or rejoices — 
That seemed so reasonless in being glad. 

I listened starward where the ghostly weaving 
Of wandering lights is all of Heaven we know 

[ 96 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

And worlds are lamps and darkness comes bereaving 

The world of ebb and flow^ 

And 'tis as if a bosom were heaving slow 

With firmamental care, — ah, heaving, heaving 

With an unfathomable earlier woe. 

"Listener at many doors, — for what disaster? — " 

Her spirit murmur crept into my ears. 

"Brooder on pictures breathed on by the Master, 

Listen at the heart that hears, — 

Ah, listen softly, breathing low!" The years 

Were not — for there She was — and, gazing past her, 

I saw the Vision raised by blood and tears. 



[ 97 ] 



VII 

For the eyes loved^ 
For the face lifted 
In that still light. 
Dark trees are groved, 
The snow drifted. 
And the mound white. 

And the grave dug 
And the words spoken 
And the flowers shed — 
And the eyes tearless 
But the heart broken 
For the brave dead. 

Though a soul thrill 
To the stars' fire 
And a mind sing 
To a keen will 
Of a high desire 
And a great thing, — 

Ah, who listens? 
Who — who hearkens 
Or answer makes, — 
Though the moon glistens 
And the night darkens 
And the heart breaks? 

[ 98 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Lay her sword by her, 
Her steel of spirit, 
Her phantom blade, 
Lest the loud liar 
In his hell inherit 
What her soul made! 

Sweet sword, she came 
To pierce and quicken 
My heart to grace, — 
Oh, white flame. 
Oh, heart life-stricken. 
Oh, deathless face ! 



[ 99] 



VIII 

Now the snow drives. The day 

Goes on in whirling gray. 

Still the world roars, 

As if no striving flame 

Had gone, as it suddenly came, 

Passing blind doors; 

As if no eyes, no smile, 

No heart that could beguile 

Evil from earth. 

Had hovered just a space 

To light one holy place 

In the dark and the dearth. 

Was it always as fierce and strange — 
This blank and sudden change 
Men have known ever.'' 
This veil as hard and keen 
As the blade of a guillotine 
Flashing to sever.'* 

Oh, ears that hark in the night. 

Eyeballs that strain for sight. 

Pulses that know 

The same dull burning ache. 

Though a man sleep, though he wake,- 

Was it always so? 

[ 100 ] 



IX 



True love runs wild and wildly understands. 
I took the bread of Heaven once from your two hands. 
And your eyes are upon me even as I sing, 
Saying, "Be of comfort. Death is a little thing." 

Oh, magic child and woman, who crept into my heart, 
Who hold me with strong arms from all the world 

apart — 
No, I will not say it — for your eyes grieve; 
I will say you draw us all to Heaven — your Heaven, by 

your leave! 

Lady Simplicitas, who hummed like any bee 
Little quaint and olden rhymes to keep simplicity. 
Lady of the downcast eyes and sudden starry mirth, 
And eloquence by torchlight for the wronged of all the 
earth. 

True love runs wild and wildly understands ! 

T took the wine of Heaven once from your two hands ; 

And when your eyes were darkened for the world's red 

smart 
You made a violet twilight as you pressed against my 
heart. 

[ 101 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

For that coiled hair's brown crown, for that sweet and 

seemly way. 
The straight thoughts, the eager words, the dazzle of 

your day, 
Shall I turn base then and learn to whine and curse? 
Not though daggers of memory flicker through this 

verse ! 

For true love runs wild and wildly understands. 
I took the sacrament of love from your two hands. 
So shall I cross the sunset hill and climb the pasture bars 
And meet you in our porch at last, in the Village of the 
Stars. 



[ 102 1 



X 



One thing only I can say to you 
Whatever be the things men do ; 
Let one love make May to you, 
Hold one love true. 
Who but hears the querulous 
Sigh and the heavy groan, — 
Yet stand for the one love perilous, 
Though you stand alone. 

Yes, and though beaten and beaten 
By the ravings of the blood; 
Though with dust and ashes eaten, 
Be one thing understood. 
The battle in the cloud overthrows you. 
Your lips are dashed with foam, — 
Yet the one love lives and knows you 
And leads you home. 

Home — ah, God ! — to the slumber 

At last and the waking peace. 

Where wars without name or number 

Give last release ; 

Where her whisper again is more to you 

Than the angels' flaming wars. 

And proud Death's hands can pour to you 

The cold of the stars. 

[ 103 ] 



XI 



The selfishness of grief! . . . and yet each turning 
And questing after some new brave relief 
Shows other steel stretched forth and on me burning 
The selfishness of grief. 

Till self who was my God and love, my chief. 

Even these turn from my side with footsteps spurning 

As, stooping low, I lift the heavy sheaf 

Of our flowered hours gathered with our yearning, 
Gathered so wildly in our happy fief 
And glimmering beautiful beyond belief, 
With dazing fragrance, till my dim discerning 
Sees them the legend dropped for my unlearning 
The selfishness of grief! 



[ 104 ] 



THE LONG ABSENCE 

I 
Accosted 

"If you saw blue eyes that could light and darkle 

With merriment or pain; 

If you saw a face that was only heart-lonely 

In the cities of the plain; 

If you felt a kindness that was happy as the daybreak, 

Patient as night. 

And saw the eyes lift and — the dawn in May break, 

You have seen her aright. 

"Blue-cloaked archangel, rein your steed a little. 

Though cities flame ! 

Messenger of night, though my words are brittle, 

Though I know not your name. 

Though your steed paw sparkles and your pinions quiver 

With colors like the sea, 

Tell me if you saw her, if you saw my love ever ! 

She is lost to me. 

"That is why I walk this windy highway 

And stop and hark 

And peer through the moonlight — always my way ! 

And listen up the dark 

[ 105 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

And knuckle my forehead to remember her truly. 

The very She ; 

And that is why I cling your rein unduly 

To answer me !" 

But the eyes were deep and dark, though somehow 

tender. 
Haste was manifest 

In the gauntlet, the greaves, the irid splendor 
That pulsed on his breast. 

He did not even gesture to the night grown holy. 
But shook his rein 

As his steed leapt forth ; while I — turned slowly 
To the cities of the plain. 



II 

The House at Evening 

Across the school-ground it would start 

To light my eyes, that yellow gleam, — 

The window of the flaming heart, 

The chimney of the tossing dream. 

The scuffed and wooden porch of Heaven, 

The voice that came like a caress, 

The warm kind hands that once were given 

My carelessness. 

It was a house you would not think 
Could hold such sacraments in things 

[ 106 ] 



THE LONG ABSENCE 
Or give the wild heart meat and drink 
Or give the stormy soul high wings 
Or chime small voices to such mirth 
Or crown the night with stars and flowers 
Or make upon this quaking earth 
Such steady hours. 

Yet, that in storm it stood secure, 
And in the cold was warm with love, 
Shall its similitude endure 
Past trophies that men weary of. 
When two were out of fortune's reach. 
Building great empires round a name 
And ushering into casual speech 
Dim worlds aflame. 



Ill 
For Thinking Evil 

For thinking evil and planning shame 
The fire licked upward — at first a name. 
Then star-devouring rebellious flame. 

The dread light lingered high on the sky. 

It grew and reddened — a voiceless cry. 

It spread and touched us, we knew not why. 

And a man sat staring out to the night. 
Through tender silence, in warm lamplight, 
Thinking always, "The fire at height!" 

[ 107 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

That fire blowing with growing roar 
Saw us going, closing the door ; 
Saw us parted — who meet no more. 

For thinking evil — all men drawn 
Against a devil that dusked the dawn. 
Each to his station. All men gone. 

Some for the hilltop, fire to its brow, — 
Death, long torture, — some for the ploughs- 
Some for the silence— that I know now. 



IV 

Travel 

You and I dreaming 
Planned the far-away. 
Cities and hedgerows. 
Distant summer day. 
When, the sun sinking, — 
But oh, a distant sun ! — 
We would be thinking, 
"Think what we have done V 

You and I whispering 
Held the isles in fee 
By a chain of grasses. 
By your smile to me, 

[ 108 1 



THE LONG ABSENCE 

Visioning some clime — 
But long years between — 
When we should say, sometime, 
"Think what we have seen !" 

You and I wondering 
Of our old age, 
Turned a page pondering, 
And turned a page . . . 
Now, my hands pluck ravelled 
Strands I can't untie. 
Yet — you always travelled 
Farther than I ! 

V 

Her Way 

You loved the hay in the meadow. 

Flowers at noon, 
The high cloud's long shadow. 

Honey of June, 
The flaming woodways tangled 

With Fall on the hill. 
The towering night star-spangled 

And winter-still. 

And you loved firelit faces. 

The hearth, the home, — 
Your mind on golden traces, 

London or Rome, — 

[ 109 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

On quaintly-colored spaces 

Where heavens glow 
With his quaint saints' embraces, — 

Angelico. 

In cloister and highway 

(Gold of God's dust!) 
And many an elfin byway 

You put your trust, — 
A crock and a table. 

Love's end of day. 
And light of a storied stable 

Where kings must pray. 

Somewhere there is a village 

For you and me, 
Hay field, hearth and tillage, — 

Where can it be? 
Prayers when birds awake. 

Daily bread, 
Toil for His sunlit sake 

Who raised us dead. 

With this in mind you moved 

Through love and pain. 
Hard though the long road proved. 

You turned again 
With a heart that knew its trust 

Not ill-bestowed. 
With this you light the dust 

That clouds my road. 

[ no ] 



BY THE COUNSEL OF HER HANDS 

"Propter veritatem^ et mansuetudinem, et justitiam: et 
deducet te mirabiliter dextera tua. Alleluia." 

With her clear eyes lifted, 

Dreaming, lighting, swift and quelling 

On all darkness drifted 

From this earth, a vacant dwelling, — 

With her haste flashing, flowing 

Bright above all fear or scorning, — 

I have seen my darling going 

Up the mountains of the morning ! 

Oh, like harps wrung thrilling. 

Like those viols that voice their answer 

To the wild still willing 

Of the heavens' necromancer. 

From the flowers around her rises 

Music — gold, more gold in glory — 

First of all those pure surprises 

At the ending of the story. 

Through the trees she passes > 

Where the purple spreads in shadow. 
Through the dew-bright grasses 
Of that heaven-quiet meadow, 
Up the way of climbing vines, 

[ 111 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Never faltering, never failing, 
Where the blue of heaven shines 
Through the sun for only veiling. 

Flowers and leaves together sing 
Like those birds in clouds that choir. 
Aching-sweet from silver string. 
Purling flute and golden wire 
Music flows no mortal knows 
Even in April thronged with voices. 
Deeper glory throbs and glows 
Till the trembling air rejoices. 

Sweet and deep, sweet and deep 
In the heart dark and aching, 
Glamorous waves across my sleep 
Is that tide of splendor breaking. 
Pure and high, pure and high. 
Shaking every star to chiming, 
Till the wonder-stricken sky 
Thrills and trembles to the rhyming ! 

Seraphim and cherubim 
On their wings' immaculate wonder 
Rise in whirlwinds from the dim. 
Pass through voids of rolling thunder, 
Mount from lightning into light. 
One great surge of praise awaking, 
White and white into the height — 
And the music trembling — breaking — ! 

[ 112 ] 



BY THE COUNSEL OF HER HANDS 
But above the wood of fear, 
On one white road forever, 
From the darkness mounts my dear 
In her still and bright endeavor, 
With her kind brave eyes. 
Honest hands and heart of healing, — 
Lips that rapturously surmise — 
Little smiles upon them stealing. 

For — a violet twilight now 

Spreads — as arms had cast a shadow 

And the Godhead stooped to bow 

Over phantom hill and meadow ! 

And — again — a field 

Floats before her — as her choice is — 

Where her heaven is revealed 

In those small and rippling voices. 

Elfin flowers invoked alive. 
Fairy clouds from hives of honey 
Like no angry human hive. 
Billows of brightness swift and sunny. 
Pattering, chuckling, panting haste, 
Rosy-shy — though never sweeter 
Than the three her arms embraced — 
Heaven's children flock to meet her ! 

There are harps in Heaven 
That must fail against that splendor ; 
And the Sacred Seven 
Bow their heads in mute surrender. 

[ 113 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Holy Mother of God, tonight 

Bend your star-bright eyes and brimming 

On the sweetness of that sight 

In that meadow, dusk and dimming ! 

For, with hands in grasp so small 
Of the tumbling ones that follow, — 
With her smile upon them all, 
Up the hill and through the hollow, — 
With that rich voice crooning, waking 
Sparkling gusts of joy and laughter, — 
Climbs the Light of my forsaking. 
Mounts the Hope of my hereafter ! 

Harshest song, bow down ! 
Mutinous words ! — to make immortal 
How the heavens in starlight drown 
As she enters in the Portal, 
How the Heavenly City glows. 
How the bells cry, "We have found her \" 
As through tears and praise she goes 
With the children crowding round her! 



[ 114 ] 



STRENGTH BEYOND STRENGTH 

"If thou hast run with the footmen and they have 
wearied thee, what wilt thou do with the horsemen?'* 

Breathless, beaten as with whips of wonder. 
Scourged and naked to the flying sky, — 
Yet have I heard the hoofs of thunder. 
Seen the horsemen glimmering by. 

Head back, teeth bared, eyes aglitter. 
Questioning still the black reply. 
Laboring stride and breath grown bitter — 
Phantom horsemen swerving by! 

Foot on the flint and burning, parching 
Death at the throat, with gall to taste. 
Rank on rank are the footmen marching. 
Wave on wave do the footmen haste! 

Past and past me toiled and slowing. 
Gasping breathing and straining limb, — 
Rank on rank are the footmen going 
Forward to fog and the distance dim. 

Sledge on the brain and huge hands crushing 
Hard on my heart that they wring at will. 
Wave on wave are the footmen rushing. 
Surging in silence across the hill. 

[ 115 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Sudden lit road they run together 
Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close ! 
Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather 
Where some glimmering horseman goes ! 

Iron in sinew, steel persuasion 
Now of the weak and sobbing will ; 
Scorn that beats on the old evasion; 
Limbs that move for the further hill. 

Teeth clenched hard on an execration. 
Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest — 
Racing death with a revelation, 
Dead and done with — but forging abreast. 

Forging past them and past, and gaining 
Once again to my hard-fought place. 
Lord of Runners, requite my feigning! 
Help me only to run this race ! 

Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather. 
Flinging the sweat from a straining brow, — 
Now, I run hy your stirrup-leather. 
Golden Horseman, I see you now! 



[ 116 ] 



QUE SAIS-JE? 

If I could answer that sob of the brave little heart, 
If I could answer that silence I suddenly fear, 
If I could give him truth that would set this apart 
From creeping question, my dear, 

There would be ground for our feet, sky for our eyes, 
At least, at worst. All I can whisper is dreams 
And faith I hold, being doubtful of all things "wise" 
And all the outrage that seems. 

We are your boys to the end, that is all I know. 
I the stronger as yet, but knowing no more 
For all my years than I guessed at years ago 
And searched through weary lore. 

I thought they knew who were older and wiser than I. 
I saw them confident, grave, with their answers swift. 
Till I stood in turn at the edge of earth and sky 
And saw the planets adrift. 

And felt my heart struggling and striving for rest 
And my baffled mind groping and yearning for peace 
In some great answer or on some infinite breast 
Of last complete release. 

And now I turn his mind to fanciful things 
And grip him close and hoarsely murmur my love 

[ 117 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

And pray away from him all this pain that clings 
To this mind I am weary of. 

Oh, I will teach him as best a man can teach 
And strive to find him all knowledge of you I hold 
And make you near to him even when out of reach 
Of my treacherous heart and cold. 

For though I cannot see there is more to be seen, 
And what I cannot know is in presciences. 
And all you are is as it has ever been 
Between my heart and his. 



[ 118] 



EBB-TIDE 

You who were never afraid of truth or doubt. 
Only saying "The light in the soul is real. 
The spirit of grace is true, the lamp is not put out." 
I must follow forever your white ideal. 

Splendor amid the smoke and the dust and vapor, 
Truth through the litter of lies and rubble of dreams. 
Mutable yet immutable; changed, and the shaper 
Of all that light in the mind that steadily gleams ! 

So — words fail, and run to ironic length; 

Like panting breath the phrases quiver and fade. 

And the heart unthought-of throbs its appalling 

strength — 
Tireless — till it too in the dust is laid. 

But something lives — say there is something lives ! 
Our passion it is, all of our will to be — 
Something in men like a rout of fugitives 
Hurrying on the shore of a phantom sea. 

Hurrying, wailing, questing, seeing the moon 

Light that waste of beauty and terror and plangent 

sound ; 
Knowing the tide creeps on, and that soon, too soon. 
All of the torches and all of the flowers lie drowned 

[ 119 ] 



PERPETUAL LIGHT 

Yet that that sea moves not of its movement only. 
All of the dim vast force is motes that blend, 
Each still striving and still secure and lonely 
Unto some end, some great mysterious end. 

You who were never afraid of truth or doubt — 
Granted that truth we know ! — oh, eyes of mine. 
Eyes in my soul that will never glimmer out, — 
This is ray soul's ebb-tide, but I make the Sign ! 



[ 120 ] 



COWARD 

By her beauty stayed, by her love empowered, 

{Coward! Coward!) 
Take the honest light and pray for grace. 
Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, 

{Coward! Coward!) 
Dare to see her face. 

Through the sea of lies — skies have always lowered! — 

{Coward! Coward!) 
Be she your horizon or your mist, 
Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, 

{Coward! Coward!) 
Toward the timeless tryst. 

One thing now you know for truth at least. 
One thing more than groan of witless beast. 
One thing more than j est at mumming feast. 
Pain is still increased, increased, increased 
Marking life like milestones toward Love's East. 



[ 121 1 



AQUILIFER 

Ax and bundled rods let Caesar's henchmen bear, 

Down to the house of sods processional torchmen pass, — 

When was your part with these, armed thought's 

aquilifer, 
Turning with streaming standard where the barbarians 

mass! 

Caesar's screaming eagles black as Hell's vultures flew, 
But birds went up our dawning splendid and wing and 

wing 
And bright for the slaves and captives your fearless 

banner blew 
And laughing-glad as a trumpet the faith you still could 

sing. 

Old as the world is evil and disenchantment old. 

Man's ancient heart is bitter, his hard eyes doubt of a 

sign. 
Blown hair beneath that banner that floated in folds of 

gold. 
In spirit I see you standing first in the battle-line. 

Kind, and a girl, and little, but wiser than all their 

sneers ; 
Truer than their predictions, daring to be not base; 

[ 122 ] 



AQUILIFER 
Daring to ride for the Captain who held through blood 

and tears 
Life well lost for justice and love acclaimed to the race. 

Still with shifting and turning, with minds and the ways 

of swine. 
Earth is girded by Caesar's men, life a stag in a snare, — 
Yet still — your banner burning first in the battle-line. 
Aye, and the trumpets blowing for dawning, Aquilifer! 



[ 123 ] 



THE WOMAN 

You could hurt and you could heal^ 
You could hide and still reveal, 
You were lilies, lilies and steel. 

You the near and you the far 
Were as lamplight and a star. 

I cannot tell them what you were; 
Yet, Death, you have not all of her. 

No, I, the passionate nondescript. 
Have wine your lips have never sipped. 

Have wine of her in my heart's blood 
Whom I never understood. 

You were tender and benign. 
Trusting — and all fire divine 
And a constellation's sign. 

You the far and you the near. 
You heaven high and heaven here. 
You the quest, and closest dear. 

Ah, God, you have not all of her. 
For still my cause she can prefer 
Where she goes, and where You were. 

[ 124 ] 



THE WOMAN 

You could weep and you could rise 
With the Word clear in your eyes, 
With a strength beyond the wise. 

Girl and goddess, will and love. 
Struggling, battling, winged above 
Memories I have memory of ! 



[ 125 ] 



PERVIGILIUM 

Oh, not in words — for what are words to seeing; 
Yet not in sight, for presence veils and hides; 
Not even in sleep, though then the gates of being 
Stand open to the large eternal tides ; 
Neither in memory, embers fading ashen; 
Nor by the code, wherein the voice is dumb ; 
Nor wild still love, fluttered by veils of passion. 
Rise summit by summit to Janiculum! 

Think not to speak and tell the riddling purport; 
Think not that sight of beauty caught the best ; 
Nor any dream furls its dim sails in her port; 
Nor any memory makes her manifest; 
Nor by a measure of days mete out her measure, 
Nor through remembered poignance pluck her strings. 
For she, like moonlight on some hidden treasure. 
Steals glimmering down and renders vain these things. 

Then I cried, "Love !" — but stars not even shrinking 
Glittered the same and night remained the same. 
Slowly I swam on dark tides of my thinking. 
Yet like no moon she rose to hear her name. 
I lay like sand unrimmed of sea and crisping 
Under dead sunlight, parched as bleaching bone, 
Till all seas shrank and dried, and the last lisping 
Of beaded water vanished from the stone. 

[ 126 ] 



PERVIGILIUM 

Then jagged lightning forked^ the thunder shattered 

Like stunning guns. Amain the trees were blown 

And shrieked and writhed and whirled their branches 

tattered 
Like patriarchs waking to some end long-known, — 
All my heart's storm — assault and wild repulsion — 
And hissing sand-coils swaying high and dim — 
Flash blinding-bright! And through that last revulsion 
I saw her passing on the desert's rim. 



[ 127 1 



TIME WAS 

Time was when you would enter 
That door and I would be 
No longer in the darkness 
Upon the sea, 

Sailing through lowering tempest 
Of thoughts within the brain. . . . 
If that could be so 
Ever again. . . . 

Time was when your slight gesture 
Would bid the fairies dance 
And make the world a twilight 
Of woodland trance, 
And wake old aching music 
All honey through its pain. . . . 
If that could be so 
Ever again. . . . 

Time was when I would flout you 
With clever something said — 
And could not live without you 
When you turned your head. 
With me you walked the sunlight, 
With me you walked the rain. . . . 
If that could be so 
Ever again. . . . 

[ 128 ] 



THE MASTERS 

Two with great hearts, deeply you proved them. 
Laughing you loved them, childlike you said, 
"Oh, but this is the part — !" Almost I reproved them 
Drawing you from me, minds long dead. 

Yet forever your voice, wraith that was rapture ! 
What great-souled spaces the while you read 
Joy — pain — mirth — all I would capture, — 
Dickens and Browning — your bended head . . . 

Heaven of lamplight I long for lonely 
Where all the folk of their fancy tread ; 
Three small faces, and mine, — and only 
Dickens and Browning — your bended head ! 



[ 129 ] 



WHEN 

It is when the trees have such radiant flowers, 

Such white and rosy showers. 

Such fragrant whispering_, — 

It is when the sun lights such mellow, yellow hours, — 

For lovers love the Spring! 

It is when the moon is so pale and drifting, 

Blossoms softly sifting 

From the vines that climb and cling, 

That my heart will stop to hear love's laughter lifting, — 

For lovers love the Spring! 

It is when the long evenings, their haze of violet wearing, 
Hold the passing voices as on music's throbbing string, 
By some vague open window I shall sit long staring, — 
For lovers love the Spring! 



[ ISO ] 



CHILDREN 

Children, we played at games — your laughter still is 

round me. 
Children, we called each other's names. I hid — you 

found me. 
Children, we went in search of death_, and came back 

often. 
Children, we prayed with equal breath — no time can 

soften! 

Children, I loved your pretty looks, your eyebrow lifted. 
Children, we wandered story-books and star-dust sifted. 
Children, we plucked amazing flowers in a walled 

garden. 
Children, we dreamed through healing hours — no time 

can harden! 



[ 131 ] 



THE RETREAT 

Some sunny close hung high 

In depths of sky. 

Vivid presentment of your old desire; 

No multitudes, but peace 

And the release 

From days and nights that are but pitch and fire. 

Some simple garden, old 

Gray walls that fold 

Its fragrance in, and one slow softened bell; 

The waited Face, the light 

And inner sight 

And the good voices that you heard so well. 

There may you quaintly move, — 

You whom I love, — 

Sometimes, even now, and make retreat at last 

With the truth known and rest 

Made manifest 

And all the meaning of the hurried past. 

And may I find you there 
When the still air 

Holds yet the thrilling of His evening smile. 
And stand within the gate 
And watch and wait. 

Till, from your prayer, you turn after a while 

[ 132 ] 



THE RETREAT 

To see me stained and torn 

And travel-worn 

But yet with all my love of you held fast ; 

And wonder "Is it he?" and know it is — 

All mysteries 

Being outdone by this mysterious last. 

And as the evening glows 

In throbbing rose 

May you lift your arms then^ lift your head and cry 

"Come !" — and yet sleep not wake 

Nor dreaming break — 

But light forever fold us, you and I. 



[ 133 ] 



SEALED 



Man has been famed 
Time out of mind 
For having gone lamed 
Or deaf or blind 
Or weighted down 
With loads that bind. 

And eye and ear 
Now curtained are 
To see or hear 
Rhyme in a star 
Since you, my dear, 
Have gone so far. 

And limbs that go 
And lips that speak 
Are not to know 
That which they seek. . 
Does Time jest so 
In a madman's freak? 

No, Time jests not. 
Nor have I guessed 
What has overshot 
All bitter jest 
Since first Man got 
Fate's manifest. 



[ 134 ] 



SEALED 

Cold eyes averse 
And stony brows 
And the old curse 
On Adam's house 
Despite, my verse 
This truth allows: 

A clear light hidden, 

A tower of air, 

A voice unbidden, 

A secret stair. 

And dream long-chidden 

That makes aware 

Thought of a time — 
Who shall say how? 
Oh, burnished grime, 
Star-studded plough. 
Common coin of rliyme 
Ringing golden now! 



[ 135 ] 



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